


Think of the possibilities

by clif08



Category: Infinity Train (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Mentions of Cancer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:01:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27912694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clif08/pseuds/clif08
Summary: People often suggest in replies to Owen Dennis's tweets that Passengers would try to find each other after they left the Train. This fic explores this theme.Contains mentionings of various diseases. Spoilers for Book 2.The author is not a native English speaker.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18





	Think of the possibilities

Charles typed in the number 206, made the font a bit thinner, changed color to green, and superimposed it on the photo of his right hand. Then he scaled it and skewed a little to make it look more believable, and carefully drew brackets in the same color. It took another minute to create a greenish glow effect. The result didn’t look very convincing, but neither did the real number - it was just a glowing set of digits, slightly defocused, and shimmering above the skin. Charles took pictures of his number several times while he was on the Train, but he lost his smartphone in one of his numerous misadventures.  
Fortunately, he doesn’t even need a real photo. After he uploaded the edited image on his social media page, Charles added a short “DM me if you know what this means” caption and clicked “Submit”.

He stared at the screen for a moment, as if expecting someone to immediately respond, then closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. Well, it’s done, now he only has to wait. He should probably buy some ads if he wants his page to get any views at all, but it didn’t bother him. He has to find other passengers one way or another. Even though his initial attempts to find them did not yield any results (except that search algorithms now constantly showed him ads for toy trains, train tickets, and all kinds of training), Charles was confident that the Train was real, and that he was not the only passenger.

First of all, time. He was gone for eight months, and his elderly parents had time to mourn him, and obviously, he lost his job. Upon his return, Charles studied amnesia a bit, and after some careful inquiries, he decided that his case certainly cannot be a loss of memory. He remembered quite clearly everything that happened on the Train, ever since he boarded it on a dark platform in a desperate attempt to break free from the routine of his lonely life. He remembered how colossal train carriages devoured miles with a deafening rumble, how narrow bridges between them creaked and swayed, how lightning cut through the crimson apocalyptic plain along which the Train was rushing. And although he lost count of how many cars he has been through, he still remembered most of them, sometimes more vividly than he would like. Last, but not least was the revelation that dawned upon him as his number whirred and rolled down to zero, the life-changing decision that seemed so obvious now, was also very real. So Charles didn’t really need other people to make sure that he wasn't crazy.

He needed them to convince others.

Charles never told anyone about the Train. He could easily imagine that he would be brought to a very attentive doctor, who would convince him, with a help of certain modern medicine, that there was no Train — just stress and exhaustion. So Charles simply answered that he did not remember what he had been doing during those eight months, and eventually they stopped asking. That was fair — madness is a common thing, and parallel worlds with magic are not, so the former is much more likely. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

And Charles had them, oh, he had a whole backpack of evidence! While he was trying to figure out how to leave the Train and what his number means, he also mused about bigger things. For example, that there is no such thing as magic, there is only sufficiently advanced technology, and the Train was brimming with it. So after the initial shock wore off, Charles realized that if could gather samples of this technology and bring them back home, if he could give it to the scientists… That would change everything.

He started to search every car for things that could not be created with the current technologies of humankind, for things that seemingly defied the laws of nature. He eventually accumulated a whole backpack of them, several pounds of various curiosities. He still remembered his collection: an iridescent crystal that glowed in the dark and hummed a tune if you sang something next to it; a deck of cards that played itself, a different game each time; a quarter that always landed on the side; an origami crane that behaved like a regular living bird; a mirror that only reflected inanimate things; a scrap of brown tentacle that he dried and wrapped in several layers of plastic, it didn’t do anything, but he got it in a battle when he chopped it off from a ghom, slamming the door right in front of its nightmarish maw. And of course, there was Randall, a friendly pint-sized water elemental who traveled with him in a plastic bottle. Charles asked several times if Randall was okay leaving the Train with him, and every time Randall reassured him that there was enough Randall for everyone on the Train.

All of this and much more was neatly packed in Charles’s backpack, and he lost it all at the very end of his journey when he was fleeing across a narrow stone bridge from some drakes. It was not before he slammed shut the carriage door that he realized he lost everything. Even Randall’s bottle was fastened to the strap of his backpack, even a paper crane he kept in his shirt pocket was lost somehow. He couldn’t open the door. He waited for the whole day, hoping some other passenger would open the door from inside so that he could go and retrieve the backpack. He would have stayed longer, but he realized that he would freeze to death if he did not go further. Back then he assumed he would find new souvenirs, but something changed in him after that loss, and his number, usually stuck in three digits, started to go down rapidly, and before he knew it he went all the way down to zero and returned home, empty-handed.

That blasted backpack haunted him in his nightmares, he would wake up at night, calling out for Randall and heard nothing but silence in return. The rustle of paper drove him crazy. He couldn’t stop thinking that he should have kept the quarter in his pocket, or how much of a progress in science those artifacts could provide, had he not lost them in the most stupid way.  
But there was no point in crying, so Charles, with his typical patience, devised plan B: 1) find other passengers and 2) find out if they have any souvenirs. He was fairly confident about the first part and had certain doubts about the second.

After the screw-up with the backpack Charles, started to suspect that the Train purposefully disallows to take out anything material from it, or at least anything unusual. Charles picked up a new pair of shoes and some clothes on the Train, in a car that looked like an abandoned mall, and they traveled back with him, but there was nothing unusual about them, even the labels were familiar. So it was quite possible that Train restricted extraordinary evidence from leaving, or maybe it turned into ordinary garbage afterward. Charles, however, didn’t want to rely on his own experience alone. He needed more proof before he could consider this whole idea to be hopeless.

There was also a possibility that the whole Train was a simulation, a virtual world indistinguishable from reality, like the Matrix from the old movie. That would explain futuristic technologies, but not the new clothes, or the scars Charles got in the brass fencers’ car. Clothes and scars, however, were not unusual and could have been arranged for him in the ordinary world, so the Matrix hypothesis wasn’t completely ruled out. Even so, a virtual world like that was still far beyond humanity’s capabilities, so investigating it was still worth it.

But for now, Charles was busy registering in every available social network and posting his edited hand photos with a glowing 206 number, the same number he got on the Train. Sometimes he received some dumb commentaries or bad jokes from people who clearly had no idea about the Train. Charles did not despair. He never met any other passengers on the Train, but he was sure of their existence. Randall mentioned that there were other humans with numbers, and he found a lot of messages from them in the graffiti car. He wrote his own message too, and maybe someday somebody will write down the phone number he left on the wall and give him a call.

The first passenger found him about two months after he posted the first photo. It started with a careful question “Excuse me, does your photo have anything to do with a train?”. The passenger clearly didn’t want to appear crazy. Then there was a two-sided interrogation, as each of them wanted to make sure that their interlocutor knew what only a Passenger could know. How did you get out? A portal opened when my number reached zero, can you tell me what the doors between cars look like? They are red with golden handles, shaped as a stylized eight; can you describe what it looks like outside the Train? A scorched apocalyptic valley, there is no sun, but the sky itself is glowing, now tell me what causes the Train to go underground? Wait, what? The Train never did this as far as I know! Yeah, sure, I was just checking you. Sorry about that.

Their conversations became more friendly after they verified each other. The stranger was using some kind of anime profile picture and a nickname Charles never bothered to google. He had no idea if he was talking to a man or a woman, an adult or a kid, and he couldn’t care less. He was only interested in the souvenirs, unusual items from the Train, extraordinary evidence. Charles was well aware that people would think twice before telling anyone about such things, let alone giving it away to somebody. So he was careful and patient. It took a long time before he dared to ask the most innocent question, something like “Sometimes I can’t believe the Train was real”. His companion agreed, but that was it. Charles described some of his curiosities, without mentioning that he wanted to bring them home. The stranger answered with descriptions of cars and creatures he had seen. Charles lamented about his broken smartphone. The stranger said he didn’t have one when he got on board.

Around this moment Charles realized how unfit he is for this task. He had no idea if the stranger was telling the truth. He wasn’t a psychologist, his soft skills were pretty much non-existent. Neither was he a scientist who could unravel Train’s mystery, nor an athlete who would have easily brought home a bag of artifacts. He was an ordinary office clerk, who thought that the Train could be a bit more useful than a regular shrink.

Other passengers, who started to join their small group after the stranger reposted Charles’s photos, didn’t share his opinion. They were totally fine with the Train’s function, they were grateful and never wanted anything else from it. Sometimes it was hard for Charles to keep his temper, and more than once he erased hateful messages instead of sending them. Using a sufficiently-advanced-technology to solve little personal crises wasn’t just wasteful, it was utterly ridiculous, there are infinite ways to get more benefits from that kind of power! Helping a person realize that it's better to try and fail than never try at all (Charles’s real backstory; he was kinda a boring person) is great, but you know what would be even better? Solve the climate crisis with a source of clean energy! What is the point of giving some random clerk a second chance in life when millions are starving to death?

There was no point asking. Charles was aware that the angry voice in his head sounded exactly like a megalomaniac villain who decided to reshape the world according to his ideals. Fortunately, he was just too small a figure for something like this. But how, pray tell, how can you sleep knowing that someone can have a Perpetuum mobile collecting dust in their attic? How can you return to your regular life knowing that someone has already advanced much further on the path to omnipotence and that a small fraction of their knowledge can save humanity hundreds of years of research? How can you ever give up when the stakes are so high?

Giving up was not an option, no matter how long it took. He wouldn’t accomplish anything more important in his life anyway. Charles was dead set on continuing his quest until he gets a stroke, or until alz makes him forget what he was looking for. But then a miracle happened, less than a year after he posted his first photo, although nobody else would even call that a miracle. Nobody noticed anything special about Jesse.

Jesse burst into their small group and instantly became the life of the party. He never interrogated anyone. He enjoyed telling about his adventures, he answered every question in detail, and it looked like he was sincerely happy to chat with people who had experienced the same thing as he did. And he spilled the beans after the very first question from Charles when he said that he never has to doubt the reality of the Train. And without any further prompting, he told them he brought a Train denizen named Lake back to our world.  
But before Charles could even get his hopes high Jesse also told them that he got on the Train twice, and that he had met the Conductor, and that his companion was a deer with every imaginable superpower. Charles let out a sigh of disappointment: this guy was clearly lying, stories like that were far too incredible even for the Train. He expected more tall tales from Jesse, like stopping the Train with his bare hands or overpowering ten thousand ghoms, but surprisingly, the stream of fables dried up. That was weird, that was uncharacteristic, and since he had no other candidates, Charles started to investigate Jesse.

It wasn’t very hard. Jesse used his real photo as a profile picture. His social media page contained more than enough information to establish his identity. Pictures from the school swimming team narrowed the searching area down to the city, and after sifting through local newspapers archives Charles got Jesse’s full name. Pinpointing his home address took a bit more time for Charles, as he had to find the house from Jesse’s photos on the street view online map.

Charles would be at a loss to answer if he was asked what he’s going to do once he found Lake. Even after he took a couple of days off and loaded a sleeping bag into his old Toyota for a long road to Arizona, he had no idea what to tell her. He was counting on a souvenir, a trinket, something that could be bought out, but if Jesse wasn’t lying, Lake was a sentient being. Donating a sentient being to the laboratory for experiments was unethical.  
Charles kinda hoped Jesse was lying after all.

...It was not before Charles parked his car not far from Jesse’s house that he understood how daunting his task was. Is he really going to spy on Jesse’s house all day long like a goddamn stalker? This was a small town, somebody will start to have suspicions pretty soon. He can get into real trouble with the police because of what he was doing. Sadly, Charles wasn’t a super agent, he was not a hacker who could track Jesse from a drone or something. He was an ordinary office clerk, and all he could do was sit in his car, with AC turned on and a cup of cold coffee cradled in his hands, and watch hot air shimmering over the overheated road.

He spotted Jesse on the very first evening, accompanied by a fairly normal-looking girl. She was dressed pretty much for the weather: white shirt with long wide sleeves covered her from the blistering sun, wide-brimmed hat and huge sunglasses obscured her face, and even her jeans, although not torn as was customary for teenagers, were quite usual. Her disguise would be ideal if she wasn’t wearing a couple of thin beige gloves. But it’s unlikely someone would wear gloves in such hot weather.  
What does she look like, mused Charles? Covered in scales or made of water like Randall, or maybe she’s a classic invisible person? What does she know about the Train? And what’s more important, would she tell anything to a suspicious stranger?

Charles rested his head on the steering wheel and gave out a weary sigh. He didn’t want to confront the Train denizen at all. All he wanted was to go home right now, and forget about this insane quest, or entrust it to someone more capable than him. To somebody who has a scientific degree and spy skills and the ability to run across a narrow bridge without dropping his backpack. He didn’t know anyone like this, and even if he won’t confront Lake, her very presence was very important. It proved that extraordinary evidence can leave the Train. To be absolutely sure he should probably check if Lake really isn’t a human, but that idea didn’t sound like a very good one, let alone legal.

With a certain relief, Charles got out of his car, threw his empty cup into a trash bin, and walked towards the nearby cafe. It was ironic how all his determination to save humanity turned to dust the moment he faced first real difficulties. When you think about it, what is the risk of being caught by the police compared to clean water for all humanity? And what is the life of one sentient being worth compared to the millions saved from cancer?  
Let somebody else do it, Charles said to himself as he walked into the cafe and bought another cup of coffee from the vending machine. He didn’t really want it, he just needed to use a restroom, but it felt awkward without buying anything. It was easy to think about the fate of humankind, but it’s completely different when the push comes to shove. You can measure lives and determine rational conclusions all you want, but goodness gracious, what does it take to see this kind of plan through?..  
He left the cafe through the back exit and he was returning to his car through the darkening park, so no one saw how a short figure in a wide-brimmed hat crashed into him with a force of a half-ton pickup truck, and hurled him on the ground behind a gnarly tree, hiding them from any possible bypassers.

“I knew you were spying on me,” Lake hissed. “Bastard… Who sent you? What do you need from me?”  
Charles had to swallow twice and take a deep breath before he managed to croak “Please don’t”.  
Lake was not impressed.  
“I swear I didn’t want to,” Charles said, wincing with each word. Did she actually break his ribs? “I mean, I mean, I did at first, but I was already leaving...”  
“Listen here, you maggot,” Lake interrupted him. There was metal in her voice, and not just figuratively. “You will tell me everything. Who you are, how you found me, and what you need from me. Don’t make me repeat myself.”

“Name’s Charles”, exhaled Charles. “I was on the Train, I was a passenger. I don’t work for anyone, I’m just looking for other passengers. I found Jesse through social media. I mean no harm, I swear, I just hoped to find souvenirs from the Train, something to give to scientists for research...” He realized that Lake was guaranteed to misunderstand him and added hastily, “But not people, of course! Just something inanimate, non-sentient, trinkets, I had a whole backpack of them but I lost it...”  
“I’ve seen people like you,” Lake spat. “Those who wanted to conquer the Train. I have a feeling it’s not gonna end well for them”.  
“I don’t want to conquer anything!” Charles protested. “Let the Train be! But it’s technology… think of the possibilities… for the whole humanity... ” His throat tightened.  
“Technology,” Lake echoed with disdain. “Is that it? Why even bother with something like this?”

Charles went silent for a while.  
“You don’t age, do you?” he asked and the twitching of her hand told him he guessed right. “And you probably will never die. Yeah, I wouldn’t bother if I were you. But I’m going to die very soon, Lake. Forty of fifty years and I will be no more. I will not live to see a Mars colony, I’ll never talk to an AI, I’ll never know what dark matter really is. I am sure humanity has a bright future ahead of it, but I really want to see at least a glimpse of it”.  
“Don’t care”, Lake snapped. “I had my share of running and I don’t want creeps like you to know where I live”.  
“I can imagine,” Charles muttered. He had a plan for such an occasion, an email with a timer, something that will be sent automatically if he’s not there to turn it off. But he didn’t prepare it, he never thought he might get killed on this trip. There was no point in bluffing since he was even worse at acting than at spying. “I don’t know how to convince you, but I really don’t need anything from you”.

Lake stared at him for a moment, then removed her glasses, revealing shiny, chrome eyes, and crouched down, leveling with Charles.  
“If I as much as hear about you again,” she said, and then picked a piece of granite from the ground and ground it to dust with her fingers. She stood up, put her glasses back in place, and left without another word.

Charles didn’t dare to drive that night, his hands were shaking too much. He was lying in his sleeping back on the back seats of his car, and despite everything he had experienced today, he knew that his quest would continue. He may never succeed, but he’d rather fail than stop trying.

But goodness gracious, how he wished somebody else was in his place.


End file.
